Looking for changes that stick....

[ChangeAgent]

Hi Everyone!

 

I'm a 47 year old female (I earned every year) and I've been making huge life changes this year.  I left my marriage (long time coming), and I moved from NJ to WA for a new job and new life.  My only son graduated college, making him officially an "adult", as well.  I went from 187 lbs. to 139 lbs. since January 1st starting with logging food, then altering my diet, then adding steps, then adding strength workouts 3-4x a week and starting to build back up to running.  Right now, I'm also trying to sell my house in NJ long distance from WA (stressful because my ex is still there and doing NOTHING to help).

 

I'm a yo-yo dieter and I'm trying to change that forever with the help of NF.  I'm 5' 6.5" and the highest weight I've been is 211 lbs. and the lowest (as a non-teenage adult) has been 124 lbs.  I have size 2 to size 18 in dresses and suits in my closet.  It's frustrating.  Big depression caused my last serious gain because I lost my only Grandmother and Grandfather within a month of each other... and they were always more like parents to me than my parents.  My stable rocks left me.  Apparently, when I sleep badly, when I'm bored or "waiting" for something to happen, and when I'm stressed, I tend to eat.  I also eat more when I've had a couple glasses of wine...   I'm hoping to ease into a new weight in the low 130's and maintain no higher than 137lbs.  Considering how many times I've been down and then blew it and gone back up, I'm concerned.  I hope I can do it by challenges and NF making "activity" and "healthy eating" into habits, rather than a means to end... which was getting down to a spot on the scale.

 

So I started out with a bang, losing about 2 pounds a week.  When I reached 150ish, I realized that I would crash and burn if I continued until the scale said "done", because I would stop doing all the calorie counting and good things.  I decided to give myself permission to switch my app to "lose 0.5 lbs. a week" and now I've been eating between those suggested calories and maintenance, on average.  I am still losing, but slowly.  I am at 138.6 lbs. as of last Saturday.  It's difficult.  Some days I fight with myself all day.  If I read my food log and it shows maintenance calories for the whole week, then I'm frustrated and I want to skip the weekly weigh-in.  However, from experience, if I start skipping my weekly weigh-ins, I crash and burn... and soon there are no weigh-ins (can't face the scale), clothes don't fit, and here we go again.

 

Anyway.... on the positive side, I love hiking, weight training in the gym, walking my dog, my cats, all animals, being out in nature, interesting crafty things, reading, trying new things, and travelling.  I loved running 10Ks, but I broke my femur and my ankle since I turned 40 and I don't know if that will happen again.  We'll see.  I can run a 10 minute pace for 12 minutes right now without pain.

 

My good habits that are pretty solid: 

• Average >10,000 steps a day, counting week by week, never going below 8000 steps in a single day (4+ months)
• Logging my calories and paying attention to macros (6+ months)  PS - macro goal is only with protein right now.  I try for 130g/day.
• Strength activities in the gym at least 3x/week (3+ months)
• No more caffeine except in chocolate (gave up caffeinated beverages over 2 years ago)
• Always eating veggies for lunch and dinner (1+ years)
• Going to bed EARLY and being in bed at least 8 hours a night, even if some nights I'm not sleeping the whole time through (6+ months, but worked on it for 2 years!)

 

So that's me...Right now... As a work in progress.  Any other recovering yo-yo dieters that have advice for me, bring it on!  Also, any recovering sweet/sugar cravers, advice is welcome there as well!  (Just don't tell me to cut out all the sugar cold turkey, no turning back.  I'm looking for changes I can support for the rest of my life, and I know that wouldn't work for me.  Usually when I try to replace candy with fruit, I end up eating the fruit and then eating the candy anyway.  Sigh.)

[Super Boo]

I understand the aversion to cold turkey. My hubby quit tobacco, booze, caffeine, and started a keto diet all in the same week. Not me, I need baby steps.

I'm new here too. Looking forward to getting this party started.